Our weekly blog on the New Orleans fine dining scene

A European Podcast About New Orleans

Other places have great restaurant scenes, but we have a native cuisine unlike any other in the country.

Robert Peyton

A couple of weeks ago I got an email from a fellow asking my advice about what to cover while he was in town to produce a radio show. I’d never heard of the show, or the guy, but I had 10 minutes and I gave him some suggestions.

The outfit is called Monocle and what Markus Hippi produced in New Orleans is pretty great (listen to the podcast here). It’s that rare instance of someone coming here and understanding us on a basic level. That understanding is aided by the folks Hippi interviewed, including Liz Williams, Ryan Prewitt, Ann Tuennerman, Francisco Robert of Dinner Lab and Tim McNally, of world-wide fame.

You know what they say about McNally, right? “He’s IN-famous,” they say. That means he’s more than famous.

I was most interested in hearing Hippi and Liz Williams discuss the history and import of New Orleans cuisine. Williams is the author ofNew Orleans: A Food Biography and the president and director of the Southern Food and Beverage Museum. She’s pretty interesting to begin with, but I’d been thinking lately about how New Orleans has both a progressive and conservative streak where it comes to food, and that’s one topic she discussed with Hippi.

I was considering was why New Orleans has such a distinct food culture where other places in the U.S. don’t. As Williams eloquently put it in the podcast, other places have great restaurant scenes, but we have a native cuisine unlike any other in the country.

I’ve said more than once that there are three things I can talk about with anyone in New Orleans: the weather, the Saints, and food. Williams (and McNally) put it more eloquently: to paraphrase, they said that our cuisine stems from our ability to relax and enjoy the moment, and that we appreciate food on a different level from our neighbors.

Williams in particular said something that rang true to me, and doubtless will to many of you as well: we don’t really appreciate how different we are until we leave for a time. When I left New Orleans for college, I was shocked that, as Williams put it, people weren’t thinking about what they were having for dinner while they were eating lunch.

Then there was the first time I tried to buy beer on a Sunday morning in advance of a Saints game. Or the first time I asked for a “go cup” at a bar; “what do you mean I can’t take my drink with me when I leave?”

That was in Memphis, where people know and appreciate good food and good times. I can’t imagine what my experience would have been had I ventured further afield. I might still be in the stocks or something.

But enough about me. You should listen to the podcast. I think you’ll agree it’s the best podcast about New Orleans narrated by a Finnish person you’ve ever heard. Speaking just for myself, I think it’s the best thing I’ve heard on the radio about New Orleans this year, and I’m not just saying that because Hippi seems to have taken some of my advice on interview subjects.

I thought it was interesting, and well-done, and maybe you will too? I hope so, given my advocacy of the thing, but if not, feel free to tell me all about it in the comments or by email.

This page requires javascript. It seems that your browser does not have Javascript enabled. Please enable Javascript and press the Reload/Refresh button on your browser.

Add your comment:

Our weekly blog on the New Orleans fine dining scene

about

Robert D. Peyton was born at Ochsner Hospital and, apart from four years in Tennessee for college and three years in Baton Rouge for law school, has lived here his entire life. He is a strong believer in the importance of food to our local culture and in the importance of our local food culture, generally. He has practiced law since 1994, and began writing about food on his website, www.appetites.us, in 1999. He mainly wrote about partying that year, obviously.

In 2006, New Orleans Magazine named Appetites the best food blog in New Orleans. The choice was made relatively easy due to the fact that Appetites was, at the time, the only food blog in New Orleans.

He began writing the Restaurant Insider column for New Orleans Magazine in 2007 and has been published inSt. Charles Avenue, Louisiana Life and New Orleans Homes and Lifestyles magazines. He is the only person he knows personally who has been interviewed in GQ magazine, albeit for calling Alan Richman a nasty name. He is not proud of that, incidentally. (Yes, he is.)

Robert’s maternal grandmother is responsible for his love of good food, and he has never since had fried chicken or homemade biscuits as good as hers. He developed his curiosity about restaurant cooking in part from the venerable PBS cooking show "Great Chefs" and has an extensive collection of cookbooks, many of which do not require coloring, and some of which have not been defaced.

Robert lives in Mid-City with his wife Eve and their three children, and is fond of receiving comments and emails. Please humor him.